As one near-tragedy begins to fade, so does another candidate come into view, almost as a subway train enters a station.
There is now no question that, about 19 months ago, on a February Friday the 13th, a then 47-year-old man named Adenir De Oliveira pushed two teenage boys, and tried to push a third, into the path of an eastbound train at the Dufferin subway station.
Early Tuesday, in reply to a question from prosecutor Marg Creal, Mr. De Oliveira's lawyer, Ian Kostman, stood and told Ontario Superior Court Judge Nancy Backhouse that "This is not a whodunit; identification is not an issue."
The sole question to be determined by the judge, who is sitting without a jury, is whether Mr. De Oliveira was so mentally ill when he pushed the boys that he was incapable of appreciating what he was doing or that it was wrong.
He is pleading not guilty to three counts of attempted murder and three of assault; Mr. Kostman has the onus of showing that Mr. De Oliveira isn't criminally responsible by virtue of his as yet-unspecified mental health issues.
Whatever these were or are, they were obvious that Friday.
Almost everyone who has testified, including three of the five boys - among them Tony Zelenka, who was also pushed three times by Mr. De Oliveira but is a big strapping lad who was able to keep his balance and save himself - noticed something odd about Mr. De Oliveira.
Tony, now 16, whirled around after the second push and saw his assailant.
"He was not looking at me," he said. "He was sort of blankly looking through me." He chased Mr. De Oliveira for a short time, realized he couldn't catch him, and went back to his friends.
He got down on his knees on the platform, peered between the cars, and saw both Jacob and Asaf. "They were sitting up and alive," he said. "Jacob was holding his foot, Asaf had his arm around him."
But even amid the chaos that erupted in the station and sent the crowd barrelling upstairs, Tony took note of the strangeness of Mr. De Oliveira.
"You thought he had mental health issues?" Mr. Kostman asked. "Yes. That was my impression." "He gave you a creepy feeling?" Mr. Kostman asked. "Yes," said Tony.
The TTC "crash gate" operator - he's the heavy fellow who opens up the gates at rush hours to accommodate the crowds - who chased Mr. De Oliveira out of the station and down Dufferin Street until he stopped at Pizza Hut and sat upon a rock and was arrested is Russell Cormier.
He said Mr. De Oliveira was alternately crying and mumbling. Sometimes, he couldn't understand the language Mr. De Oliveira was speaking - he is accompanied by a Portuguese interpreter in court - but once, shortly after the Toronto Police arrived, he spoke in English.
"He said he tried to get help, he went to the doctor, he went to the hospital to get his medication - he said 'Nobody will help me.'"
Another TTC employee, Joseph Degabrielis, also chased Mr. De Oliveira, and practically the first words he spoke to the 911 operator were, "Buddy, I need the police here … I got a crazy guy here."
Mr. De Oliveira, he said, reminded him of Frankenstein's monster, because of his stiff-legged walk and curious, expressionless face.
The two boys who were actually pushed onto the tracks - 15-year-old Jacob Greenspon and Asaf Shargall, who was then 14 - won't be called to testify.
They flew through the air, one after the other. Asaf, with magnificent composure, managed to pull Jacob to safety underneath the platform lip. Asaf was bruised, and two toes on Jacob's left foot had to be amputated, but they lived, and that's the miracle. Their world view would have shrunk to the track, the roar of the train bearing down upon them; they could have seen little else.
So many people rose impressively to the occasion - the boys themselves, civilians, the TTC employees, perhaps particularly Mr. Cormier, who finally got back to the station after Mr. De Oliveira was arrested and made the joyful discovery that the boys were alive. "I was very happy, very grateful," Mr. Cormier said outside court. "All I could think about at that time was my kids; I just wanted to get home."
He wanted to do the right thing; he didn't want the man who had pushed the kids to get away. That has been a common refrain thus far; it is clear that people respond courageously when children have been hurt. "Someone pushed kids onto the track!" was the rallying cry.
As Ricardo Mateus, a 25-year-old who was at the station waiting for his girlfriend and also chased Mr. De Oliveira, said so well, "My job, as a citizen, was to make sure" the suspect didn't get away. Damn straight, and good for them all.
But children, especially these bright, articulate, engaging boys, are easy to love. If the hints about Mr. De Oliveira - the heavy man in a baggy white T-shirt who walks like Frankenstein's monster - are borne out in evidence, it may be that he could have used a little of it too.